mmmmcmxxxviii

An Old Man’s Karmic Parodoxes

Reflecting on his topsy-turvy
but mostly hard-earned, lucky,
modestly successful life – okay,
it had been a rollercoaster,

especially here at what was
surely to be the tail-end por
tion of it.  He had never be
lieved in karma.  That was

too illogical.  Oh, he had his
dreamy fantasies, and for a
man bent on engagement and
logic (to a fault at times)—I

mean he was a poet—and he
could let his mind and at times
his body and spirit get caught
up in the big notion of romance,

of love, never fate, he was too
much of a control freak, but he’d
often make big decisions based
on gut instinct and butterfiles,

knowing full well it was not a
leading cause for true success.
Not for him.  However, for one
so internally steeped in logic,

he’d lived through some fairly
karmic circumstances, the
biggest example that always
came to mind was that he’d

historically denigrated even
the idea that a long-distance
relationship might be a serious
one at all.  One borne of long-

distance, at least.  And he’d
think occasionally of the very
attractive man he’d ghosted
after a few dates for the simple

reason that he incessantly e

manated a dourly pungent odor

of garlic from what must have
have been every single pore of

his body.  He would even joking
ly tell this story if ever the right 

time (to him) arose.  The years
went on and began to take

their toll, most especially be
cause the bright fortunate life
he led from place to place had
taken a tragic turn one mind-

altering day, changing his life
so incredibly, and only in the worst
possible ways, the ones that seemed
impossible to rise above.  Then,

wouldn’t you know it, he found
himself in a long-distance relation
ship with someone he had met on 
the internet.  And with someone

who seemed as satisfied with the
virtual ways as he was uncomfort
able with them, perferring the phy

sically present ways.  It went on

for many years, and even

when he eventually found 

himself in its seventh year
(having only had the

pleasure of his company
in the same physical space for 

less than a couple of weeks’
duration).... Well, ithout going

into any more details or
giving away how that turned
out, there was also the time
he had what he thought an

amazing connection on a date
some time after he’d parted
ways with garlic man.  There
seemed such a connection

and on so many levels, but
afterwards when requesting
what he figured would be an
easy second time hanging out,

he was blatantly told it didn’t
seem in the cards because he
didn’t like “the smell of your
clothes.”  Well, at least in that

case, crisis averted, I suppose.
As the old man grew closer to
sleep (hopefully just that) one
night late in his life, as he was

thinking about these events in
which he’d been a part of, had
molded his life in perhaps quite
significant ways, each circum

stance, on their own, he recalled
his stance on astrology, which he
thought quite related to all this stuff.  

He hadn’t put any credence whatsoever 

in the unscientific practice, even as his

world seemed inundated with examples 

in which the practice foretold severe 

truths.  But he had found at an

early age how enlightening it might
be, how truly engaging it was, when
one was first getting to know a person
in which there was obvious interest, 

or attraction, to ask the familiar
“What’s your sign?” and then move on
to a deep analysis of how each of
their astrological signs gave so many

clues about how terrific (or, heaven for
bid, haha, not terrific) their pairing might
ultimately be.  He could not even be
gin to imagine the hour he had spent

in long conversation on that subject,
and how it had brought him and the
person with whom he was conversing
most always closer, but sometimes al

so further apart, which could have easily
been taken as proof that astrology was
all but a spot-on science.  And that was
his last thought before, lying in bed in

his rather modest-sized apartment where
he’d lived alone ever since that great
tragedy so many years ago, before which
he’d lived such a wonderful, blessed life.

If one had been watching over him they
would have noticed the early deep but
fairly quiet intermittent rasps that would
occur in which an onlooker could tell

that the old man in the bed was
working his way toward sleep.  And
while there was no literal onlooker, 

those intermittent rasps turned with 

some haste into what would be long, 

ugly, extended snoring fits.  A nightly
routine the poor man had no idea
of, having lived alone for so many years.